Collusion Conspiracies?

[Joesitz (RIP)]

All this talk about conspiracies!!

Can someone explain to me is there a system of rotating judges between the various segments of a competition? For example, in ICE Dance, are there permanent members of the Judging Panel who will be judging all the segments of the competition? and at some point, there will be additional members selected to be present at the CD, the OD, and the FD, to fill in the quota assigned to the competition.

The Security Council in the UN, has both permanent members and additional members, the latter, who serve a certain term. The additional members are those who expressed interest in serving, come from a particular region, and are voted in. There is no luck of the draw.

Now how does the system go with respect to the rotation of Judges from the CD, the OD and the FD.? Help! I'm not sure collusions can exist.

Joe

 

[laceup]

I thought the panel stayed the same throughout the entire event :scratch:

 

[Mathman]

It depends on the event. In the Junior Grand Prix Final just completed, all the judges served on all segments of the competition. Four Continents is like that, too, probably because it is hard to find enough countries willing to send judges. (Only European members can judge the European Championships, but European judges can also serve at Four Continents – again (I think) because there aren’t enough non-European countries with qualified judges.)

For Worlds, it goes like this. Twelve countries are drawn at random to supply judges for the short program. (Three sets of scores are eliminated in the random draw at the time of the event, but that’s a separate procedure.)

Four more countries are chosen for the Long program. They are joined by a random selection of 8 more drawn from the 12 who served for the SP.

So there are 8 who do both, 4 who do just the SP, and 4 who do just the LP.

This is all spelled out in “Rule 582” in the ISU archives. Here are the results of the draw for the major championships coming up.

http://isu.sportcentric.net/db//files/serve.php?id=712

So, does this procedure help or hurt the chances of attempted conspiracies? It could go either way.

For Worlds in the men’s discipline, for instance, the SP judges are AUT, CHN, FRA, GER, ITA, JPN, ROU, RUS, SVK, SLO, UKR, and USA.

For the LP, the panel is 8 of those (which 8 is yet to be determined) plus BUL, CRO, FIN, and SRB.

Let’s say Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia decided to make common cause. In the SP the cabal would have two on a panel of twelve. By the luck of the random draw, they might end up with either 2 out of 9, 1 out of 9, or 0 out of 9.

In the LP, Croatia and Serbia are definitely on the panel. They are joined by either 0, 1 or 2 of their pals. Worst case scenario, all 4 make it to the LP panel and survive the random draw. Now the conspiracy has 4 members on a panel of 9.

So – any way you slice it, lots of different things can happen.

 

[chuckm]

The panels stay the same at the GP, JGP and "B" International events.

But at most ISU Championship events (Euros, Jr Worlds, Worlds), the ice dance and singles panels are drawn this way:

4 Judges are selected (supposedly at random) to judge the FS/FD.
12 Judges (not including the above) are selected to judge the CD/OD or SP.

Then 8 judges from the CD/OD group are randomly selected to judge the FS/FD.

In Pairs, and at 4C, 12 judges are selected to sit on both SP/FS panels and CD/OD/FD panels. 4 Alternate judges are selected in case any of the original 12 are unable to attend the competition.

Here are the Selections for the ISU Championships.

EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
Men
FS: AUT, GBR, ITA, SVK
SP: BLR, BUL, CZE, FIN, GER, POL, ROU, RUS, SLO, SWE, SUI, UKR
Ladies
FS: CZE, ITA, RUS, UKR
SP: AUT, BEL, CRO, EST, FIN, GER, HUN, ISR, ROU, SRB, SVK, SWE
Pairs
SP/FS: BUL, CZE, FRA, GER, GBR ITA, NED, POL, RUS, SVK, SLO, UKR
Alternates: 1-BLR, 2-EST, 3-FIN, 4-AUT
Dance
FD: BUL, CZE, GBR, POL
CD/OD: ARM, AUT, AZE, EST, FRA, GER, HUN, ISR, LTU, RUS, SUI, UKR (Note: with 7 Russia-friendly judges on these panels, I don't think DelShoes will successfully defend their Euros title.)

FOUR CONTINENTS CHAMPIONSHIPS
Men
SP/FS: AUS, BLR, CAN, CHN, TPE, GER, JPN, KOR, SRB, RSA, USA, UZB
Alts: 1-CZE, 2-RUS, 3-UKR, 4-POL
Ladies
SP/FS: AUS, CAN, CHN, TPE, DEN, FIN, JPN, KOR, RSA, SUI, USA, UZB
Alts: 1-FRA, 2-POL, 3-UKR, 4-LTU
Pairs
SP/FS: AUS, BUL, CAN, CHN, FRA, ITA, JPN, POL, SVK, SLO, SWE, USA
Alts: 1-GBR, 2-LTU, 3-GER, 4-UKR
Dance
CD/OD/FD: AUS, BUL, CAN, CHN, FRA, GER, JPN, POL, KOR, RUS, SUI, USA
Alts: 1-HUN, 2-SVK, 3-UKR, 4-FIN

JUNIOR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Men
FS: FIN, FRA, TUR, USA
SP: AUS, AUT, CAN, CRO, GER, ISR, ITA, LTU, ROU, RUS, RSA, SWE
Ladies
FS: AUT, BLR, BEL, RUS
SP: AUS, CHN, TPE, CRO, CZE, FRA, KOR, ROU, SRB, SLO, RSA, USA
Pairs
SP/FS: BEL, CAN, CHN, TPE, EST, GBR, LTU, POL, RUS, SVK, SUI, USA
Alts: 1-AUS, 2-CZE, 3-GER, 4-KOR
Dance
FD: AUS, POL, RUS, USA
CD/OD: BUL, CAN, CHN, CZE, EST, FRA, GER, GBR, HUN, SVK, SUI, UKR

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Men
FS: BUL, CRO, FIN, SRB
SP: AUT, CHN, FRA, GER, ITA, JPN, ROU, RUS, SVK, SLO, UKR, USA
Ladies
FS: BUL, ITA, ROU, RUS
SP: AUT, CAN, CHN, TPE, EST, GER, HUN, KOR, SVK, SWE, SUI, UKR Note: No USA, JPN!
Pairs
SP/FS: CAN, CHN, FRA, GER, GBR, ITA, POL, RUS, SWE, UKR, USA, UZB
Alts: 1-BEL, 2-TUR, 3-CZE, 4-BUL
Dance
FD: ARM, BUL, EST, RUS :sheesh:
CD/OD: AUT, AZE, CAN, CHN, FRA, GER, GBR, ISR, JPN, LTU, USA, UZB

 

[Ptichka]

The Security Council in the UN, has both permanent members and additional members, the latter, who serve a certain term. The additional members are those who expressed interest in serving, come from a particular region, and are voted in. There is no luck of the draw.

In the UN, there is no pretense of objectivity. Each country represents its own interest, and "collusion" is expected (such as the US actually being nice to Cameroon when it needed UN to pass the Iraq war resolution). So the goals of the UN and the ISU are diametrically opposed. Where there are similarities between those organizations is that in the beginning, countries (or federations in the case of ISU) tended to be larger, representing greater chunks of population/ sport. Now, just as skating fans complain of the many former Soviet republics all dancing to the same tune but having separate votes, it's a concern in the UN when each county has equal number of votes (permanent security council aside), often resulting in relatively small areas getting disproportionally large vote.

 

[laceup]

Thanks Mathman and Chuckm, I continue to learn a lot since I started reading this forum!!!

 

[bekalc]

Besides, I don't think the UN make up is very fair anyways. It's set to ensure that certain groups mantain power.

 

[chuckm]

Besides, I don't think the UN make up is very fair anyways. It's set to ensure that certain groups mantain power.

And Russian judges 'loaned' to several small federations allows Russia to exert powerful influence over figure skating placements in every discipline.

 

[bekalc]

And Russian judges 'loaned' to several small federations allows Russia to exert powerful influence over figure skating placements in every discipline.

Well, they obviously didn't do a great job, seeing as in the conspiracy mentioned, the Russian teams went 1 and 3 rather than 1 and 2. Tell me Chuck M, did you actually see that competition. Do you have tapes for all to see.

You know what? I'm not saying that there wasn't judging colliding going on. But I think before everyone says that happened, they should actually Gasp! Watch the competition first. Before going on and on about conspiracy theories and reports are now that there is no investigation of the judging, and no protesting either.

The least fans can do for the first, is actually watch the competitions before they claim something was rigged..

 

[Mathman]

^ Well, not really. There could be cheatin' rascally judges slinking around AND the final result turn out right anyway.

In the Junior Grand Prix Final, the charge (whether true or not) was that various Powers That Be wanted:

(a) Monko and Tkachenko to finish first ahead of Samuelson and Bates.

(b) Gorshkova and Butikov to get bronze ahead of Crone and Poirier and Chock and Zuerlein

(c) Agafonova and Dun to finish ahead of somebody.

That's what happened. If that's what should have happened anyway, that's a separate question from whether the fix was in or not.

 

[chuckm]

I think that's a fair summation, MM.

I would have added that neither the Ukrainian nor Italian teams finished last to the list of what should have happened (and did happen).

The third Russian team finishing last was the most shocking. IMO, that should NEVER have happened.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Still a couple of observations by this dummy (moi):

1. How is it that one can be absolutley sure that 3 of the Big Powers (Canada, China, Japan, Russia and the USA) will be on the Panel at any give time if the draw is from a hat? and there are no Permanent Judges in the ISU.

2. To support collusion, which I don't (and in reply to Pticka's excellent comment) what exactly goes on after one segment is completed and everyone goes for a shot of whatever, do the judges converse about what they just judged? Can one judge from country A psst to country B and make a deal for the next segment? There is plenty of time to boost some skater(s) who needs it after the earlier segment. They all know who the rotation judges will be.

Joe

 

[chuckm]

What about the second segment (FS and FD) judges? Since there aren't that many ISU ice dance judges, very often it's known well before the event who the individual judges on the preliminary panels are going to be. It would be very easy to simply make deals and arrangements well in advance, and contingency plans as well.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

I still believe cultural similarities plays a role in judging and there is no need for collusion. It is built in. Croatia, Servia, Slovakia, and Slovenia all have common cultural ties and languages. They will think alike.

Joe

 

[chuckm]

Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia are all Balkan countries, and they may have cultural similarities, but Slovakia is a central European country with a completely different cultural background and influences. Sorry, but you can't lump Slovakia in with the others.

 

[hockeyfan228]

I still believe cultural similarities plays a role in judging and there is no need for collusion. It is built in. Croatia, Servia, Slovakia, and Slovenia all have common cultural ties and languages. They will think alike.

Joe

Even without Slovakia, if Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia's common cultural ties and language cause them to think alike, I don't think there would have been so much bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia.

 

[chuckm]

There's no love lost between Croatia and Serbia, nor between Slovenia and Serbia. And I have to agree that guys/gals from these countries may have some cultural ties, they sure aren't going to think alike.

Remember, World War I started in the Balkans.....

BTW, Slovakia and the Czech republic were once one country: Czecholovakia.

Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo et al. were all once part of Yugoslavia. Tito held the country together under autocratic rule, but after he died, the historic antagonisms broke out once again, and Yugoslavia splintered into many pieces, and not peacefully.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Even without Slovakia, if Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia's common cultural ties and language cause them to think alike, I don't think there would have been so much bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia.

Very good, hockeyfan. But it was cultural ties, and yes, not political ties.

 

[gio]

Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia are culturally different!! Slovenia and Croatia are catholic and Serbia is orthodox. Slovenia is not Balcanic, but more Mitteleuropean (center Europe).

 

[gio]

Very good, hockeyfan. But it was cultural ties, and yes, not political ties.

No Joesitz, they are culturally different!!